Showerthought: Found a 200 year old fence post in the woods near my cabin in Vermont

I was hiking on some old logging land I just bought up near Montpelier last weekend. There's this overgrown patch nobody has touched in decades. I tripped over this half-rotten log sticking out of the ground and when I kicked it, it had square nails in it. Not the round kind you buy at Home Depot. Those were hand-forged, square head nails. I pulled one out and it was rusted solid but still had that old hammered shape. That means someone built a fence there maybe around the 1820s or earlier. I ended up finding about 30 feet of buried stone wall too. It made me think how many everyday things from past centuries are just sitting right under our feet in the woods. Has anyone else stumbled onto old foundations or boundary markers while hiking around their place?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_seth13d ago

Respectfully disagree, square nails were still common up to the early 1900s.

parker_campbell13d ago

Fair point, I used to think they were all that old too.